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THE HISTORY 



OP 



A RARE WASHINGTON PRINT. 



THE HISTORY 



OF 



A RARE WASHINGTON PRINT. 



A PAPER READ BEFORE THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF 
PENNSYLVANIA, MAY 6, 1889. 



BY 



WILLIAM S. BAKER, 



AriHOB OF THE "engraved PORTEAITS OF WASHINGTON," " MEDALLIC PORTRAITS OF WASHINO- 
TON," "character portraits of WASHINGTON," AND " BIBLIOTHBCA WASHINGTONIANA." 



reprinted from 
The Pennsylvania Magazine op History and Biography. 



'^^SP^. 



PHILADELPHIA; 
1889. 



THE HISTORY 

OF 

A RARE WASHINGTON PRINT. 



In the winter of 1778-79, General "Washington visited 
Philadelphia, in order to confer with Congress on the oper- 
ations of the next campaign, a comprehensive plan proposed 
by that body for the invasion of Canada, in co-operation 
with an army from France, being the principal subject to be 
considered. To this the commander-in-chief was strongly 
opposed, and the result of the conference was the abandon- 
ment of the design. 

During his stay, which was brief (December 22 to Feb- 
ruary 2), the Supreme Executive Council of the State, in 
furtherance of a desire to have a portrait of him for the 
Council chamber, at a meeting held on the evening of Jan- 
uary 18, 1779, passed the following resolution : 

" Whereas : The wisest, freest and bravest nations in the 
most virtuous times, have endeavored to perpetuate the 
memory of those who have rendered their Country distin- 
guished services, by preserving their resemblances in Statues 
and Paintings : This Council, deeply sensible how much 
the liberty, safety and happiness of America in general 
and Pennsylvania in particular, is owing to His Excellency 
General Washington, and the brave men under his com- 
mand, do resolve. That His Excellency General Washing- 



4 The History of a Rare Washington Print. 

ton be requested to permit this Council to place his Portrait 
in the Council Chamber, not only as a mark of the great 
respect which they bear to His Excellency, but that the con- 
templation of it may excite others to tread in the same 
glorious and disinterested steps, which lead to public happi- 
ness and private honor. And that the President^ be desired 
to wait on His Excellency the General, with the above re- 
quest, and if granted, to enquire when and where it will be 
most agreeable to him, for Mr. Peale to attend him."^ 

To this the commander-in-chief made the following re- 
sponse : 

" Gentlemen : The liberal testimony of approbation which 
you did me the honor of transmitting by the hands of his 
Excellency the President, coming from so respectable an as- 
sembly, cannot but make the deepest impression on my 
mind. However conscious I am that your generous sensi- 
bility attributes infinitely too much to me, my respect for 
you leads me to acquiesce in your request and gratefully to 
subscribe myself, Gentlemen, Your much obliged and most 
obedient servant, George Washington. 

"Head-Quarters Philadelphia, Jany. 20, 1779."=^ 

Shortly after sitting for this portrait, "Washington left 
Philadelphia, his departure being chronicled in the Pennsyl- 
vania Packet of February 4 : " Tuesday Morning (February 
2,) His Excellency General Washington set oflf from Phila- 
delphia to join the army in New Jersey. During the course 
of his short stay (the only relief he has enjoyed froin service 
since he first entered into it), he has been honored with 
every mark of esteem which his accomplished fortitude as a 
soldier, and his exalted qualities as a gentleman and a citi- 
zen entitle him to. Among other instances he was wel- 
comed at his first coming, by an address from the Supreme 

^ Joseph Eeed. 

2 Minutes of the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth 
of Pennsylvania, Vol. XI. }>. 671. 
' Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. VII. p. 161. 



The Hwim'y of a Rare WasJdnffion Print. 5 

Executive Council and the Magistrates of the Cit}-, and po- 
litely entertained by the President of Congress, the Presi- 
dent of the State, his Excellency the Minister of France, 
Don Juan Marailles a Spanish gentleman of distinction and 
amiable character, besides the numerous testimonials of 
regard shown him by private gentlemen. 

" The Council of this State being desirous of having his 
picture, a full length, requested his sitting for that purpose, 
which he politely complied with, and a striking likeness 
was taken by Mr. Peale, of Philadelphia. The portrait is 
to be placed in the Council Chamber. Don Juan Marailles 
has ordered five copies, four of which, we hear, are to be 
sent abroad.^ His Excellency's stay was rendered the more 
agreeable by the company of his lady, and the domestic re- 
tirement which he enjoyed at the house of the Honorable 
Henry Laurens, Esquire, with whom he resided."^ 

Charles Willson Peale, the painter of this siriJcing likeness^ 
was a man of marked ability and ingenuity. At this time 
he was in his thirty-eighth year, widely know^n as an excel- 
lent portrait-painter, and, indeed, for some time, both before 
and after the Revolution, was the only painter in this coun- 
try of any reputation. His first portrait of Washington 

^ While in all probability some, if not all, of tliese copies must have 
been made and the pictures in existence, yet we are unable to indicate 
the whereabouts of any one of them. 

* It was during this visit to Philadelphia that the profile by Pierre Eu- 
gene du Simitiere was drawn. The following entry in the diary of M. 
du Simitiere, furnished by William John Potts, Esq., of Camden, N. J., 
from the original manuscript, is of interest, inasmuch as the fact that 
Washington sat to him has not heretofore been positively known : 
" Paintings & Drawings done. 1779 Feby 1^', a drawing in black lead 
of a likeness in profile of his Excellency general Washington form of a 
medal, for my collection. N. B. The General at the request of the 
Hon. Mr. Jay President of Congress came with him to my house this 
morning & condescended with great good nature to sit about f of an 
hour for the above likeness, having but little time to spare being the last 
day of his stay in town." The drawing is not in existence, but the por- 
trait is well known through engravings, the first of which was published 
at Madrid in 1781. Vide Baker's " Engraved Portraits of Washington," 
pp. 39, 41. 



6 The History of a Rare Washington Print. 

(the first autlieutic portrait) was painted at Mount Vernon 
in 1772.^ This portrait is directly referred to by Washing- 
ton in a recently-published letter,^ dated Mount Vernon, 
May 21, of that year : " Inclination having yielded to Im- 
portunity, I am now contrary to all expectation under the 
hands of Mr. Peale ; but in so grave — so sullen a mood — 
and now and then under the influence of Morpheus, when 
some critical strokes are making, that I fancy the skill of 
this Gentleman's Pencil, will be put to it, in describing to 
the "World what manner of man I am." 

A second was painted in the summer of 1776, when the 
artist was in the army as a captain of militia,^ and a third in 
the spring of 1778, commenced at Valley Forge, but not 
finished until later in the year.* The portrait ordered by 
the Executive Council for the Council chamber, was prob- 
ably the next, it being understood that in this enumeration 
oil-paintings only are included. 

His miniatures of Washington, of which quite a number 
are in existence, are beautifully executed ; the earliest was 
painted at Mount Vernon in 1772, at the same time of the 
production of the first oil portrait. Peale is said to have 

^ A three-quarter length, in the costume of a Virginia colonel, — blue 
coat, faced with red, and dark-red waistcoat and breeches. 

^ Written to Eev, Jonathan Boucher, and published in LippincoU's 
Magazine, May number, 1889, p. 731. See also " The Writings of George 
Washington," collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford. 
Vol. II. p. 349. 

' A half-length, painted for John Hancock. 

* A full-length, said to have been painted to the order of Congress, 
but that body having made no appropriation for payment, the picture 
remained in the hands of the artist. It is now owned by Mr. H. Pratt Mc- 
Kean, of Philadelphia, having been purchased by him at the time of the 
dispersion of the Peale Gallery. Mr. Peale made several copies of this 
picture. One of these copies, captured by Captain Keppel of the British 
navy, in 1780, when on its way to Holland, has from that time been in 
possession of the Keppel family, Quiddenham Hall, Norfolk, England ; 
a second, formerly the property of the Count de Menbu, is now owned 
by the United States government ; and a third, known through the en- 
graving by Wolff, is in the gallery at Versailles. In all of these pictures 
Washington is resting by the left hand on a cannon. 



The History of a Rare Washington Print. 7 

painted fourteen portraits of Washington from life, the last 
in 1795, and of these he seems to have made many copies or 
repetitions. 

The portrait now under consideration, a full-length, rep- 
resenting Washington at Princeton, the college buildings 
being given in the distance to the right, was placed in the 
Council chamber in the State-House at Philadelphia, where 
it remained until September, 1781, when it was totally de- 
faced by some persons who broke into the building, whether 
from malice or a mere spirit of destruction does not appear. 

The account of this act of vandalism in the Freeman's 
Journal of September 12, is decidedly original : " On Sun- 
day the 9th. instant, at night, a fit time for the Sons of Luci- 
fer to perpetrate the deeds of darkness, one or more volun- 
teers in the service of hell, broke into the State House in 
Philadelphia, and totally defaced the picture of His Excel- 
lency General Washington, and a curious engraving of the 
monument of the patriotic General Montgomery, done in 
France in the most elegant manner. Every generous bosom 
must swell with indignation at such atrocious proceedings. 
It is a matter of grief and sorrowful reflection that any of 
the human race can be so abandoned, as to offer such an 
insult to men who are and have been an honor to human 
nature, who venture and have ventured their lives for the 
liberties of their fellow-men. A being who carries such 
malice in his breast must be miserable beyond conception. 
We need wish him no other punishment than his own 
feelings. 

" ' The motions of his spirit are black as night, 
And his affections dark as Erebus.' " 

And so runs the story. The portrait was painted, it was 
placed in the Council chamber, and it was destroyed. This 
would seem to be the end. But, fortunately the art and 
mystery of engraving in mezzotinto had been acquired by 
the painter, and in this case had been utilized in transferring 
the portrait to copper the year previous to its destruction, 
thus transmitting to us, through the intervention of printing, 
all the essential qualities of the original. 



8 The History of a Rare Washington Print. 

Impressions from tliis plate, taken by liimself, were pub- 
lished in the latter part of 1780, but although many must 
have been printed and widely distributed, only three have 
as yet come to our notice. One of these impressions is in 
the collection of the writer, another is owned by the family 
of Robert B. Cabeen, of Philadelphia, and a third is in the 
" Huntington Collection," in the Metropolitan Museum of 
Art, New York. The illustration accompanying this paper 
is a reproduction from the first-named impression. 

Mr. Peale was a practical man, and believed in letting 
the public know what he was doing, so we find the following 
advertisement of this print in the Pennsylvania Packet of 
August 26, 1780 : 

" The subscriber takes this method of informing the pub- 
lic, that he has just finished a metzotinto print in poster 
size (14 inches by 10 inches besides the margin), of Ilis Ex- 
cellency General Washington, from the original picture be- 
longing to the State of Pennsylvania. Shopkeepers, and 
persons going to the West Indies, may be supplied at such 
a price as will afford a considerable profit to them, by ap- 
plying at the South West corner of Lombard and Third 
Street, Philadelphia. Charles Willson Peale." 

This advertisement was repeated in September and De- 
cember, when the price, two dollars, was given. 

We imagine that the collector of the present day would 
willingly go as far as Lombard and Third Streets, Philadel- 
phia, could he secure a copy at that price. 

The print, which is dedicated to the " Honorable the Con- 
gress of the United States of America, By their obedient 
servant, Cha^ Willson Peale," does not give the entire figure 
of the painting, but with that exception it is doubtless a 
faithful reproduction of the original, which must have been 
one of Mr. Peale's best efibrts. The picture, representing 
the commander-in-chief in full uniform, standing and resting 
by the right hand on a cannon, is good in composition, the 
drawing excellent, the figure well posed, easy, and graceful, 
and the general effect pleasing. The face is rather longer 



The History of a Rare Washington Print 9 

than we are accustomed to seeing in other paintings and 
prints, but it has every appearance of being a likeness.^ 

A description of the personal appearance of Washington, 
written about thi-ee months after the picture was painted, 
will be of interest in this connection. 

" General Washington is now in the forty-seventh year of 
his age ; he is a tall, well-made man, rather large boned, 
and has a tolerably genteel address : his features are manly 
and bold, his eyes of a blueish cast and very lively ; his hair 
a deep brown, his face rather long and marked with the 
small pox; his complexion sun-burnt and without much 
color, and his countenance sensible, composed and thought- 
ful ; there is a remarkable air of dignity about him, with a 
striking degree of gracefulness. "^ 

This is the second engraved portrait of Washington pro- 
duced by Mr. Peale, the first having been executed in 1778, 
two years earlier. From this plate, however, no impressions 
are known, the information as to its production being ob- 
tained from his manuscript note-book, as follows : " Oct. 16. 
1778. Began a drawing in order to make a metzotiuto of 
Gen' Washington. Got a plate of Mr. Brooks and in pay 
I am to give him 20 of the prints in the first 100 struck 
ofi". Nov. 15. Began to print ofl:' the small plate of Gen' 
Washington. 16*^ Continued the same business all day; 
of prints gave one dozen to those I wish to compliment,^ 
and sold 11 Doz. at Five Dolls." 

^ In this picture, as stated, Washington is resting by the right hand on 
a cannon ; in the picture painted to the order of Congress, referred to in 
the note on page 6, the pose is reversed, the left hand being placed on 
the piece. 

^ From " A Sketch of Mr. Washington's Life and Character," forming 
the contents of an anonymous letter dated Maryland, May 3, 1779, and 
published at London the following year. The letter was written by John 
Bell, Esq., of Maryland, to a friend in England, and the sketch is the 
first biographical notice of Washington of any consequence which has 
come to our knowledge. It was reprinted at Philadelphia, in the Penn- 
sylvania Gazette of November 28, 1781. 

3 From the following entry in the diary of M. du Simitiere, referred 
to in a preceding note, p. 5, that artist was the recipient of one of 
these complimentary prints : " Curiosities and Books by whom given. 



10 The History of a Rare Washington Print. 

A third plate was executed in 1787, from a bust portrait 
painted at Philadelphia in July of that year, during the 
sitting of the Constitutional Convention. Impressions 
from this plate have now become extremely rare. The print 
is well known, however, through a copy made in 1865 by 
John Sartain, mezzotinto engraver. 

Besides the Washington plates, Mr. Peale engraved a bust 
portrait of Franklin, one of Lafayette, another of the Rev. 
Joseph Pilmore, and a full-length of William Pitt, Earl of 
Chatham. The latter, his first plate, was probably engraved 
in London in 1770. All of the Peale plates are creditable 
examples of engraving, the Washington of 1780 being one 
of the best and most important. r 

Charles Willson Peale has the enviable distinction of 
having painted the first authentic portrait of Washington ; 
to this may now be added the honor of having produced the 
first engraved portrait of Washington from an authentic 
original. 

Feby. 1779. A small mezzotinto of the head of Gen. Washington done 
by Mr. Peale painter of this city, given by him." Mr. Peale also gave 
him a copy of the print of 1780 : " Curiosities natural & artificial by 
whom given. May 1781, a mezzotinto print of General Washington, 
poster size done by Mr. Ch. Wilson Peale from a painting of his own 
the gift of the author." 



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